A hidden power of smiling

1.

A collar: the part of a shirt, coat, dress, blouse, etc., that encompasses the neckline of the garment and is sewn permanently to it, often so as to fold or roll over.

2. Embark: to board a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle, as for a journey

3. Span: the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger when the hand is fully extended.

4. Womb: the uterus of the human female and certain higher mammals (Phôi thai)

5. Cannibalism: the eating of human flesh by another human being.

6. Ritual: a system or collection of religious  (Nghi lễ)    

7. Impaired = decrease

8.Courteous = polite

9. Competent:  having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience,etc., for some purpose; properly qualified

TRANSCRIPT:

When I was a child, I always wanted to be a superhero. I wanted to save the world and then make everyone happy. But I knew that I'd need superpowers to make my dreams come true. So I used to embark on these imaginary journeys to find intergalactic objects from planet Krypton, which was a lot of fun, but didn't get much result. When I grew up, and realized that science-fiction was not a good source for superpowers, I decided instead to embark on a journey of real science, to find a more useful truth.

I started my journey in California with a UC Berkley 30-year longitudinal study that examined the photos of students in an old yearbook and tried to measure their success and well-being throughout their life. By measuring their student smiles,researchers were able to predict how fulfilling and long-lasting a subject's marriage will be, how well she would score on standardized tests of well-being and how inspiring she would be to others. In another yearbook, I stumbled upon Barry Obama's picture. When I first saw his picture, I thought that these superpowers came from his super collar.But now I know it was all in his smile.

Another aha! moment came from a 2010 Wayne State University research project that looked into pre-1950s baseball cards of Major League players.The researchers found that the span of a players smile could actually predict the span of his life.Players who didn't smile in their pictures lived an average of only 72.9 years, where players with beaming smiles lived an average of almost 80 years.

The good news is that we're actually born smiling.Using 3D ultrasound technology, we can now see that developing babies appear to smile, even in the womb. When they're born, babies continue to smile -- initially, mostly in their sleep. And even blind babies smile to the sound of the human voice.Smiling is one of the most basic, biologically-uniform expressions of all humans.

In studies conducted in Papua New Guinea, Paul Ekman, the world's most renowned researcher on facial expressions, found that even members of the Fore tribe, who were completely disconnected from Western culture, and also known for their unusual cannibalism rituals, attributed smiles to descriptions of situations the same way you and I would. So from Papau New Guinea to Hollywoodall the way to modern art in Beijing, we smile often,and you smile to express joy and satisfaction.

How many people here in this room smile more than 20 times per day? Raise your hand if you do. Oh, wow. Outside of this room, more than a third of us smile more than 20 times per day, whereas less than 14 percent of us smile less than five. In fact, those with the most amazing superpowers are actually children who smile as many as 400 times per day.

Have you ever wondered why being around children who smile so frequently makes you smile very often? A recent study at Uppsala University in Sweden found that it's very difficult to frown when looking at someone who smiles. You ask, why? Because smiling is evolutionarily contagious, and it suppresses the control we usually have on our facial muscles. Mimicking a smile and experiencing it physically help us understand whether our smile is fake or real, so we can understand the emotional state of the smiler.

In a recent mimicking study at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, subjects were asked to determine whether a smile was real or fakewhile holding a pencil in their mouth to repress smiling muscles. Without the pencil, subjects were excellent judges, But with the pencil in their mouth,when they could not mimic the smile they saw,their judgment was impaired.

In addition to theorizing on evolution in "The Origin of Species", Charles Darwin also wrote the facial feedback response theory. His theory states that the act of smiling itself actually makes us feel better -- rather than smiling being merely a result of feeling good. In his study, Darwin actually cited a French neurologist, Guillaume Duchenne, who used electric jolts to facial muscles to induce and stimulate smiles. Please, don't try this at home.

In a related German study, researchers used fMRI imaging to measure brain activity before and after injecting Botox to suppress smiling muscles. The finding supported Darwin's theory by showing that facial feedback modifies the neural processing of emotional content in the brain in a way that helps us feel better when we smile. Smiling stimulates our brain reward mechanism in a way that even chocolate -- a well-regarded pleasure inducer --cannot match.

British researchers found that one smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate. (Laughter) Wait. The same study found that smiling is as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 pounds Sterling in cash.That's like 25 grand a smile. It's not bad. And think about it this way: 25,000 times 400 -- quite a few kids out there feel like mark Zuckerberg every day.

And, unlike lots of chocolate, lots of smiling can actually make you healthier. Smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, increase the level of mood-enhancing hormones like endorphin and reduce overall blood pressure.

And if that's not enough, smiling can actually look good in the eyes of others. A recent study at Penn State University found that when you smile you don't only appear to be more likable and courteous,but you actually appear to be more competent.

So whenever you want to look great and competent, reduce your stress or improve your marriage, or feel as if you just had a whole stack of high-quality chocolate -- without incurring the caloric cost -- or as if you found 25 grand in a pocket of an old jacket you hadn't worn for ages, or whenever you want to tap into a superpower that will help you and everyone around you live a longer, healthier, happier life, smile.

Essay: What is qualities of a talent manager?

Topic: What is a quality of a good manager?

It is unarguable that leading other people is always a hard work and nowadays it seems to be more difficult. There are many arguments globally debating that a manager is a person who delegates all work to subordinates or only knows to use his authority to control other employees. From my point of view, a good leader not only controls working process but also has some important features such as ability to judge people, good communication skills and especially delegating skills.

Delegating skill may be the most important quality which all talent managers must have. Each employee is good at different parts of work, for example, some are good at accounting or administrative jobs while other work well with dealing with clients. A good manager knows which part of the whole working progress will suit with each employee and hence delegates tasks to the right staff. For instance, in most companies, the manager is responsible for every part of the work, so if he or she delegates jobs to the inappropriate staff, the tasks will not be completed in deadline.

Additionally, a good manager also needs to have good communication skills. More detailed studies have shown that normally the manager is not the best person in a group. Although there are people who are better than him or her but a manager must have the best communication ability. A supervisor’s duty is making people in the group interact well and ensure everything is good. Hence communicating with other partners is a vital skill.

However, a good communication ability does not mean to satisfy everyone in a group. A talent manager knows when to make decisions even if they make some employees dissatisfy. It is clear that there are always arguments and conflicts between colleagues and a manager has to judge who is right. If the manager gives a correct judgment, it will not only encourage him to work better but also make employees believe in his ability. In contrast, if the manager makes an incorrect decision, the employees will feel disappointed and may not work effectively as usual.

In general, becoming a talent manager is always a difficult task and a good employer needs many abilities. But nothing is impossible, if a manager knows how to delegate and make good decisions, it is not hard to become an excellent leader.